61: Who Were the Sons of God in Genesis 6?

Welcome to the Ready for Eternity podcast, a podcast and blog dedicated to inquisitive Bible students exploring biblical truths that might not be fully explored in typical sermons or Bible studies. My name is Eddie Lawrence.

What really happened before the flood? Who were the sons of God in Genesis 6? Some angels mated with humans, but does the Bible actually teach that? Let's unpack.

Ancient Mythology Versus the Genesis Flood Account

The context and challenge the myth. Imagine a time in the distant past, not long after the creation of mankind, when humans began to multiply across the surface of the earth. It was during these times that the lesser gods began to take notice of human women.

These divine beings burned in their lust for the beautiful daughters of mankind. The leader of these lesser gods said, come let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.

Two hundred of these gods, in defiance of Yahweh, bound themselves together with an oath to journey to earth and take human wives. They descended to the top of Mount Hermon and there took human form. They all took human wives, each one as he chose, and went into them defiling both themselves and the wives they had taken.

The gods taught their women the secret knowledge of charms and enchantments and how to beautify the eyelids and adorn themselves with jewelry and precious stones. Their wives became pregnant and bore offspring who became great giants.

They taught men about the metals of the earth and how to form them into weapons of swords, knives and spears, and how to make breastplates and shields. In this way did the gods spread violence upon the earth and corrupt the ways of mankind.

The Giants also turned against mankind when humans could no longer sustain them for they had devoured all which the humans possessed. Thus evil and the cries of perishing men filled the earth. If you're thinking this sounds.

Like something straight out of pagan mythology, you're not wrong. Yet there are those who believe that the story above is the explanation of the events leading up to the flood of Noah. They say that the sons of God in Genesis chapter 6 verses 1 through 4 were angelic beings, aka the lesser gods, and the Nephilim were the hybrid offspring of these angels and human women.

This is a very old idea which has seen a resurgence in recent years. There are three main arguments the supporters of this view base their conclusion on. Number one, they claim that the phrase sons of God always refers to spiritual beings everywhere it is used in the Bible.

Number two, Jewish literature from the Second Temple Period contains origin stories about demons, giants, and angels who left heaven which purports to explain Genesis 6 verses 1 through 4. And number three, Peter and Jude endorsed the veracity of the Second Temple Period literature by quoting from it.

Based on these things, there is a perception that intermarriage between divine beings and humans explain the origins of the Nephilim and the great evil on the earth which caused God to send the flood.

Let's examine these arguments to see if there's any scriptural support for this fantastic.

Tale. When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever for he is flesh.

His days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

Genesis 6 1 through 4. The phrase the.

Sons of God comes from the Hebrew b 'nai ha Elohim. Those who affirm that the sons of God in Genesis 6 2 were spiritual beings claim that everywhere else the phrase appears it always refers to angelic beings.

Therefore, they conclude that the sons of God in Genesis 6 2 must mean the same thing. This is a little bit of a misleading claim since the exact wording only appears in two other verses in the entire Old Testament.

Job chapter 1 verse 6 and chapter 2 verse 1. The phrase sons of God without the definite article also appears in Job 38 7. The context in Job clearly shows that the phrase describes angelic beings, but is that enough evidence to conclude that the sons of God in Genesis 6 means the same thing?

Context is the overriding consideration when determining what a word or phrase means. We all know from everyday experience that a single word or phrase can have a very different meaning depending on how someone uses it in context.

Aside from these verses I just mentioned, everywhere else in the Bible where sons of God appears, it's referring to humans. Therefore, sons of God isn't a technical phrase referring to the same beings everywhere the biblical writers use it.

It's one of several phrases the Bible uses to describe a group of humans and or angels depending on the context. Listen to these.

Verses. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Matthew 5 9. For they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.

Luke 20 36. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Romans 8 14. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. Romans 8 19. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.

Galatians 3 26. There's also.

Variations of wording which describe the same relationship and status. You are the.

Sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. Deuteronomy 14 1. Yet the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered.

And in the place where it is said to them, You are not my people, it will be said to them, You are the sons of the living God. Hosea 1 10. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.

And your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For he himself is kind to ungrateful and.

Evil men. Luke 6 35. You see, the context defines who the sons of God are. We shouldn't get hung up on an exact phrase when what the text is trying to communicate is relationship or status. The equivalent terms that Deuteronomy and Hosea and Luke use, that is, the sons of the Lord your God, the sons of the living God, the sons of the Most High, these show and communicate that the idea of being a son of God is about status or relationship.

These passages make quite clear that the phrase includes humans, and this continues right into the New Testament. Jesus now grants his followers this status, and what is this status? To be a son of God is to have membership in a class or a group of beings, whether humans or angels, who have pledged loyalty to God, whom God has accepted, and whom God has assigned a role or responsibility to fulfill.

As the uses the phrase, a son of God may be either a spiritual being or a human. The context in which we find the phrase will allow us to determine whom the text is discussing. This Hebrew phrase isn't a technical expression which only refers to divine beings as the verses that we listen to demonstrate.

Another argument used by supporters of this view is that Genesis 6 verses 1 through 4 creates a contrast between two classes of beings. Proponents of this divine-human marriage interpretation say that humans, that is the daughters of men in Genesis 6 verse 1, are contrasted with a group that is not human, the sons of God in verse 2.

It is true that the author expresses a contrast, but nothing in this text forces us to conclude that any beings other than humans are under discussion. How can we know for sure who or what the Bible is discussing?

Well, we can know by observing the surrounding context. Many people assume that Genesis 6 verses 1 through 4 is the introduction to the flood story. However, the context reveals this is not really the case, and these verses instead comprise an epilogue of chapters 4 and 5.

The two prior chapters document two separate lines of people. Chapter 4 documents the descendants of Cain, and chapter 5 documents the descendants of Seth. The Bible establishes a clear contrast between these two branches of Adam and Eve's family.

Seth's branch describes the line God chose which would ultimately produce the seed of the woman that we read about in Genesis 3 .15, who would defeat the serpent and the serpent's offspring. The genealogies pause to give us a glimpse of the kind of people that each of these two lines of descent from Adam produced.

We're introduced to a man named Lamech, in Genesis chapter 4 verses 19 through 24, who was descended from Cain. In Genesis 5 verses 21 through 24, tell us about a man named Enoch, who was descended from Seth.

The author of Genesis is highlighting these two men as representatives of their respective branches of the family. By comparing the character traits of these two representatives, the text is subtly suggesting that Seth's line was the more godly of the two.

The objection that the sons of God cannot be human since Genesis 6 .2 contrasts them with humans, that is, the daughters of men, ignores the immediate context of chapters 4 and 5 entirely. Similar contrasts comparing different groups of humans are evident in other Old Testament passages.

For example, Judges 20 verse 3 contrasts the Benjamites with the Israelites. Does this mean that the sons of Benjamin were not Israelites? Of course not. The contrast is between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of Israel.

Likewise, Jeremiah 32 .20 contrasts Israel with all mankind. Were the citizens of Israel not part of all mankind? Or should we understand that Israel is being compared to the rest of humanity? Obviously, the latter is correct.

A little closer to home is Noah right here in Genesis 6 verses 5 through 8. God saw that the wickedness of humankind was great, but God found Noah righteous. Does this mean that Noah wasn't human? Other examples could be given, but the point is clear.

When groups are contrasted, one group is often a subset of a larger group. The sons of God in Genesis 6 were followers of God who were contrasted with the remainder of Adam's offspring who were not followers of God.

The context of chapters 4, 5, and 6 give us all the information we need to identify who these two groups are. There's ample biblical evidence to show that the sons of God is a description used of both humans and spiritual beings.

In fact, this phrase and its equivalent refers to humans far more than it does to angels. We can't ignore the context in which words and phrases are found because the meaning of words is heavily influenced by the context in which they are spoken or written.

Second Temple Literature and the Sons of God Debate

In the next episode in this Sons of God series, we'll examine the relevant stories contained in Jewish Second Temple period literature that has influenced some people's view of Genesis chapter 6.

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